


Keep it Professional (The First Impressions Remix)

by rabidchild67



Category: Actor RPF, White Collar RPF
Genre: Crushes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professional crushes are an occupational hazard. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep it Professional (The First Impressions Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/gifts).



This is a remix of Elrhiarhodan’s ficlet [First Impressions](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/365516.html)

~+~

The kid was a pro. Tim liked that. 

Tim himself had been around the block a few times, so it was good to be working with people who completely understood what it was to be a journeyman actor. Matt was well-grounded and open-minded; showed up for his calls on time and took direction well. He’d been knocked around a little bit too – had a few pilots that added up to nothing but still managed to keep a positive outlook. Matt respected the craft, which was more than Tim could say about a lot of the young bucks he’d worked with over the years. Many had flashed too bright and then faded; Matt seemed to be of the “slow and steady wins the race” school, and Tim found it refreshing the way he seemed to look to Tim as a good example of how to remain a working actor in Hollywood.

And he clearly had a crush on Tim.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a young person developed a crush – and Tim was understanding enough of his own ego to hope it wouldn’t be the last. There had been Carla on _Carnivale_ , and Ken, his agent’s intern last summer. But they’d been young ingénues – much younger than Matt, who was what, maybe 30? – and he’d been able to laugh it off pretty easily. These things were normal, an occupational hazard even and, above all else, fleeting.

Elisa delighted in teasing him about it. All the damn time. It was becoming a problem. 

“What, you don’t think it’s cute?” she’d said two weeks before when Tim brought it up about Matt.

Tim had given her the hairy eyeball. 

“Well, I do, and I think it’s hot too.” She slid in closer to him on the patio chaise back at home, hand slipping under his shirt to rest on his warm belly, tickling the fine hairs with her fingertips. “My husband is so sexy, these young things are throwing themselves at him.”

“Most women I know would be jealous.”

Her hand traveled further south. “Most women you know wouldn’t want to watch,” she said before biting him on the neck, and what the hell had _that_ meant, he’d like to have known, though he’d never gotten the chance to ask. The kids were off at some pool party and she’d proceeded to blow him right then and there in their backyard with no preamble, their iced tea glasses sweating away on the table and the garden gnomes looking on placidly.

He still wondered what the hell she meant as he tried to ignore the looks Matt had been sending his way through the second table read the week before, and yesterday’s rehearsals. But acknowledging it on an intellectual level and being able to ignore it on an emotional one were two entirely different things. 

So he probably shouldn’t have kissed Matt, then.

Tim loosened his collar and fanned his face. He could feel a flush creeping up his neck thinking about it, and about Matt’s reaction. It was at the photo shoot the day before: he and Matt dressed in-character, posing atop some crap warehouse now turned into hipster housing in Brooklyn, the lower Manhattan skyline visible over their shoulders. The purpose of the shoot was half wardrobe screen test, half publicity shoot, but it went all goofy pretty quickly. 

The photographer had noticed they were getting along really well, and he encouraged them to “get crazy.”

“Define crazy,” Matt said, seeming to be game for everything.

“I dunno, do the first thing that occurs to you,” was the reply.

So Tim had leaned over and planted a big, wet one on Matt’s cheek. 

Matt’s eyes had gone wide, his mouth opening in an O of surprise as the shutter clicked a mile a minute. It was over in a second, and then he was looking over at Tim, the expression on his face and in his eyes a little bit hopeful, a little bit turned on. But mostly embarrassed. He took a step back. “What was… um, what was…” He was blinking rapidly, face flushed.

“Uhhhh,” Tim had begun, the apology right on the tip of his tongue, but the photographer began laughing, crowing about what a great shot it was, and how it was a shame that they couldn’t bottle the kind of chemistry the two of them had. He’d even gone as far as to say he thought the show would be a big hit.

“From your lips…” Matt had replied, and the moment was gone.

The day had worn on, and they were never alone long enough so that Tim could apologize, and by this morning it was too late to say anything anyway. Tim hoped it had all blown over. Except that every time Matt looked at him, his cheeks would turn pink and he couldn’t _quite_ meet Tim’s eye. 

“Gaa-aa-aah!” Tim groaned, so frustrated with himself it needed to be voiced. He rolled his shoulders as he waited for the DP to line up the cameras for this shot, tried to focus on the scene and his own performance. He and Marsha were supposed to go striding into this warehouse and taking command of the situation, and it wouldn’t do for him to be all red-faced and flustered when the director called, “Action.” Peter Burke was supposed to be this badass, take-charge person. Tim would have to dig deep to find that today.

There was a problem with the sound recording, further delaying the take, and it did nothing for Tim’s peace of mind. He knew Matt was inside, ready for scene being filmed right after this one, where Peter and Neal bond over having caught the baddie. The thought of seeing him again was strangely appealing – they’d missed each other in the makeup trailer this morning. Tim found himself reflecting on how very attractive Matt looked when he was embarrassed and Tim couldn’t help thinking about it. He stammered charmingly, and actually said, “Aw, shucks” repeatedly, his Texan accent coming out unwanted, the pink in his cheeks highlighting the other-worldly blueness of his eyes. 

He shook his head, trying to dispel the images, tried to stop imagining how Matt would feel beneath him, what he smelled like, tasted like. How Tim would take him apart, his sighs, his moans as he responded to tongue and teeth and lips…

“What the hell, man, keep it together,” he admonished himself aloud, when his brain caught up to his fantasies. “You’re a married man.”

 _”What was that, Tim?”_ came the voice of Roger, the sound guy, from his spot fifteen feet away.

Tim looked up, mortified. “Nothing, just practicing my lines.”

Roger gave him the thumbs up and Tim turned away, face burning hot. He cleared his throat and looked for Marsha – maybe she’d run lines with him while they waited. 

Maybe he had his own crush to deal with.


End file.
